PNG export doesn't match image in Photo.

[PixelD]

Hi all,

I'm in need of some urgent help to fix exporting out of AF. New time user to Photo here, and I'm attempting to switch my set up completely from Photoshop.

Working in a 32bit document, with Display transform set to ICC Dispay Transform.

I'm working with compositing together 32-bit ACES-CG passes that are rendered in Maya and V-Ray 6. My setup is a few various light, dirt and specular passes that have a few adjustment layers on top, then to get the render to look identical to what I see in V-Ray's framebuffer I am using two OCIO Adjustment Layers - the first is set as so:

Source Colour Space: ACES - ACEScg

Destination Colour Space: Output - sRGB

Then the second OCIO Adjustment layer is set like this:

Source Colour Space: Utility - Curve - sRGB

Destination Colour Space: ACES - ACES2065-1

All is then fine and dandy in Affinity Photo then, the render looks exactly how I want and most importantly matches my previous Photoshop setup.

When I export to a PNG the exported image then looks really dark and washed out (snippet of the render is attached), how can I fix this? It looks ok in the Export preview.

When I export out to JPG it looks fine, but I need PNG to work as my client's need a transparent background.

 

Even if I flatten the doc, the PNG export still looks way too dark.

Edited June 8, 2024 by PixelD

[walt.farrell]

22 minutes ago, PixelD said:

When I export to a PNG the exported image then looks really dark and washed out (snippet of the render is attached), how can I fix this? It looks ok in the Export preview.

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

Please show us the Export settings, and also, what are you using to view the PNG file once exported? Are you exporting it as RGB/32, and if so are you viewing witth an application that supports RGB/32 PNG files?

[PixelD]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

Please show us the Export settings, and also, what are you using to view the PNG file once exported? Are you exporting it as RGB/32, and if so are you viewing witth an application that supports RGB/32 PNG files?

Thanks for the welcome!

My export settings are attached. I'm viewing the file in the preview window in Windows Explorer, fCheck, and Windows Photo viewer, it's incorrect in all of them.

As far as I know, it's just an 8-bit PNG as I can't see an option to set the bit depth on export. This is generally how Photoshop exports out PNGs, anyway, so I assume it's the same for Photo. My client just needs 8-bit PNGs that can be used online, nothing too fancy.

[walt.farrell]

24 minutes ago, PixelD said:

As far as I know, it's just an 8-bit PNG as I can't see an option to set the bit depth on export.

You have said the following in those Export options:

With that setting, if you have an RGB/32 document, then you're (as of Photo 2.4) going to get an RGB/32 PNG file, too. You would need to change the Pixel Format to RGB 8-bit if you want the equivalent of what you'll get with your JPG export (as JPG doesn't support RGB/32).

 

[PixelD]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

You have said the following in those Export options:

With that setting, if you have an RGB/32 document, then you're (as of Photo 2.4) going to get an RGB/32 PNG file, too. You would need to change the Pixel Format to RGB 8-bit if you want the equivalent of what you'll get with your JPG export (as JPG doesn't support RGB/32).

 

Thank you so much, Walt! I've changed that option to export out as 8-bit and it looks perfect now. for some reason I didn't even click on the Pixel Format menu.

I wasn't even aware that PNG could do 32-bit, I thought it was only Tiff, HDR and EXR that could support that kind of depth. Thanks again, you've saved me an Adobe subscription 👊

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

[josbin]

hey, 

question where did you get the ocio config with the Utility - Curve - sRGB in it? cant find it anywhere! So I was stalking the forums and found this post

 

Best

[PixelD]

8 minutes ago, josbin said:

hey, 

question where did you get the ocio config with the Utility - Curve - sRGB in it? cant find it anywhere! So I was stalking the forums and found this post

 

Best

I'm using ACES 1.2 config file. Download it here: 

https://github.com/colour-science/OpenColorIO-Configs

https://github.com/colour-science/OpenColorIO-Configs/tree/master/aces_1.2

[josbin]

Thanks!